1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an illumination apparatus and an imaging apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, a digital camera imaging a photo-object by an image pickup device such as a CCD (Charge Coupled Device), and storing the image of the photo-object in various recording media, has a function for taking a moving picture, in addition to a function of taking a still picture. As a format for storing a moving picture, a MJPEG (Motion Joint Photographic Experts Group) format is frequently employed. According to the MJPEG format, a photo-object is imaged successively, for example, once in every 33 msecs by exposing the image pickup device in accordance with a certain frame rate, and a plurality of frames obtained by imaging the photo-object are compressed and stored.
Most digital cameras have a built-in strobe. It is not realizable that such a built-in strobe is used to secure exposure when taking a moving picture in such a way as described above. That is, a built-in strobe is so structured as to emit a strobe light (auxiliary light) by using a discharge tube such as a xenon lamp or the like as a light source and by causing the discharge tube to discharge by a high voltage current from a power source of the camera in which the built-in strobe is contained. With this strobe structure, one light emission time is short, and the amount of consumed electricity is too large to allow successive light emission. Hence, there arises an idea of using a light emitting diode (hereinafter referred to as LED) which consumes a less amount of electricity, in order to secure exposure when taking a moving picture (for example, see Unexamined Japanese Patent Application KOKAI Publication No. H5-328210).